Introduction to Mindfulness - Dean Amory

Mindfulness exercises for the fourth week
1. For the remaining two weeks of this class, extend your daily
meditation session to 30 minutes.
For at least the first ten minutes, keep your meditation simple -- focus
on the breath. To the best of your ability, when some other
experience gets in the way of being with the breath, simply let it go
and come back to the breath. After this ten-minute warm-up period,
switch to more open mindfulness. This means continuing with the
breath until something else becomes more compelling. When physical
sensations, emotions or thinking predominate, let go of the breath
and focus your meditative awareness on these. When nothing else is
compelling, come back to the breathing.
2. Spend some time reflecting on the assumptions, attitudes and
beliefs you have about your thoughts. Do you usually assume that
they are either true false, right or wrong? Do you identify with your
thoughts? That is, do you think that what you think defines who you
are? Do you believe that your thinking will solve your problems or
that it is the only means to understand something? After you have
reflected on this on your own, have a conversation with someone
about what you have discovered.
3. Once during the next week, spend a two-hour period tracking the
kinds of things you think about. Find some way to remind yourself
every few minutes to notice what you are thinking. Are the thoughts
primarily self-referential or primarily about others? Do they tend to
be critical or judgmental? What is the frequency of thoughts of
"should" or "ought"? Are the thoughts mostly directed to the future,
to the past, or toward fantasy? Do you tend more toward optimistic
thoughts or pessimistic ones? Do your thoughts tend to be
apprehensive or peaceful? Contented or dissatisfied?
This is not an exercise in judging what you notice, but in simply
noticing. Most people live in their thoughts. This is a two-hour
exercise in regularly and frequently stepping outside of the thought
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